by Dr. Jeffrey Lant

In my role as a marketing consultant, I regularly hear from people working various MLM opportunities. Almost invariably, what they tell me is despairing. Just this week, a man told me he'd invested $2,200 in a full page ad in a magazine going to MLM enthusiasts. He wanted to drum up new candidates for his organization. Net result? 6 responses!

Another fellow just wrote me about the opportunity he's in and all the frustration it's brought him. He got his friends involved... culled his Rolodex... even put posters around the neighborhood. Net result. "If I were to pull out today, I'd have lost about $3,000 more than I've made," he bewailed.

If you're in MLM and you're not making money, you know precisely what these people are going through... because odds are you're going through it yourself.

BUT MUST IT BE THIS WAY? SO DIFFICULT? FRUSTRATING? UNFULFILLING? UNPROFITABLE?

That depends on the answers to just two crucial questions:

• Is the opportunity you've selected even capable of making you $100,000 a year... or, indeed, any substantial profit at all, and
• Do you know -- and can you implement -- the kind of rigorous marketing program that's necessary to achieve this financial objective?

I'm not going to address the first question here; that's the subject for another article. But I will say this: when you go into an opportunity, one of the first things you've got to do is ask your sponsor exactly what you've got to do to earn at least $100,000 a year. Then pay real close attention to what he says. Does it make sense? Do you understand what he's saying? Is what he's saying realistic? And, most important of all, can you do what's necessary to achieve this level of financial gain?

Fact is, most people who go into MLM do so to make money... but they never ask their sponsors searching questions about how that money can be made. And, in truth, even if they did, they'd still be puzzled... because the sponsors themselves have never bothered to research this matter either. That's just downright dumb. If you expect to make money in an MLM opportunity... much less make an annual six-figure income... then you'd better spend the time it takes to understand just how that money can be made and just what you're going to have to do. This consists of more than salivating over a faint photo-copy of somebody's else's big monthly check!

Okay, You Know Your Opportunity Can Make Money. What Next?

Once you understand that big money can be made... and how it can be made, the real challenge begins: developing and implementing the marketing plan that'll bring you the right number of people for your organization, then closing and working with them. All three parts are mandatory.

As you consider these three critical matters, think about how what you're doing now... think about what your friends and other members of your downline are doing. They're approaching the business of MLM with a "bake sale" mentality; they're spending lots of time to raise a few pennies.

People new to MLM get all fired up, attend a few meetings... and approach the matter of building their organizations with a breathtaking absence of mind and thoughtful deliberation. They take the materials produced by the MLM company, including the stock ads and flyers, and start passing them out helter-skelter, sink their limited marketing budgets into the smallest of ads in a few opportunity publications... and then sit back mulling over what to do with their sure-to-come millions. Instead of money, of course, all they harvest is bitter regret... until they find their next opportunity which they're sure will do better. THIS ISN'T A WAY TO GET RICH, PAL. IT'S A PRESCRIPTION FOR FAILURE.

Solving The First Problem: Marketing Communications That Won't Motivate

Take a look at most MLM marketing communications. I'm talking about ads, flyers, cover letters, brochures... and all those expensive four-color prospect kits you've got to pay for. Virtually all of them are trash, and the parent companies should be drawn and quartered for producing them. Why? Because they focus on the opportunity... on the features of what the company is selling... and not the benefits the buyers get.

Now, when you go into MLM there are two types of people you have to motivate: there are the people you want to motivate to sign up for your downline, the ones that build your organization, and there are the consumers who actually buy the products. You need client-centered materials for both... and both are going to be different because the objectives of both are different.

Recently, I've been systematically reviewing the marketing communications produced by some of the most well-known MLM companies, and I tell you this: they ought to be ashamed of themselves. What people signing up for an MLM organization want to know is simple: how well can I do and what do I have to do to do that well. Therefore, they want 1) a systematic plan that shows them, step by step, precisely what they've got to do to make money and 2) provides them with all the client-centered marketing communications they need to motivate others to join their downlines and (for consumers) buy their products. These materials should be simple, clear-cut, aggressively focused on the benefits the targeted market gets.

Now I defy you to show me the marketing communications produced by ANY MLM company that actually do this? Instead, you get graphs, charts, lavish four-color printing... and a lot of "me-centered" hyperbole about how good the company is. In short, almost nothing that these companies produce is usable by the very people they ought to be bending over backwards to serve, namely those already in their organization... and those they wish to attract to it. Much less the customers, who produce the money that is, in the final analysis, so crucial to the overall health of the organization.

THIS IS IDIOTIC.

... not least because it means that every individual involved in MLM has to master marketing... instead of spending his/her time implementing a proven marketing process. What a lot of waste this is.

Thus, the first thing you've got to do is develop aggressively client-centered documents... documents that aren't full of a lot of windy rhetoric but real benefits for real people... and incentives for motivating these people to act NOW!!!

Note: When you're serious about creating these kinds of client-centered marketing communications, use my books CASH COPY: HOW TO OFFER YOUR PRODUCTS AND SERVICES SO YOUR PROSPECTS BUY THEM... NOW and NO MORE COLD CALLS: THE COMPLETE GUIDE TO GENERATING -- AND CLOSING -- ALL THE PROSPECTS YOU NEED TO BECOME A MULTI-MILLIONAIRE BY SELLING YOUR SERVICE

Now, Become A Master Lead Generator

Once you've developed aggressive client-centered marketing communications, it's time to put them to work. Unfortunately, here's another place where most MLM-ers go astray. Instead of developing a money-making plan, they think small, indeed infinitesimal. As a result, they get few leads... and never develop the necessary synergy to create the $100,000 a year organization.

... Enter card-decks.

As my opening illustration shows, just because you spend big money buying an ad in a print publication (even one exclusively for MLM-ers) doesn't mean you're going to make any money. The guy I told you about, for instance, took a real bath, effectively wiping out his year's advertising budget and postponing his dreams.

Was this necessary? It certainly was not.

Had he taken the same amount of money, $2200, and invested in card-deck advertising he would have received at the very least about 1,500 responses, or about 250 times what his investment actually returned. How can I be so certain about these numbers? Because I run such a card-deck, and I've been tracking the returns of the MLM cards for over two years now. Not surprisingly when I told the hapless advertiser these numbers, he got sick.

How do you achieve these results? In just this way:

• first, by wanting them. People who are satisfied getting six new prospect leads will never do what's necessary to get 1500;
• second, by understanding how the system produces them and by following the directions so you produce them for yourself, and
• third, by implementing a lead-closing program that derives maximum benefits from the leads you generate.

Enter Card-Decks: The Best Way For Generating Large Numbers Of Leads Quickly

You know what card-decks are; packs of post-cards bundled and mailed together, each post-card containing a separate offer, which, when completed, can be returned to the advertiser for prompt processing.

These cards work when you:

1. pack your copy with client-centered benefits, when you tell the prospect what he's going to get from you... and when you make an offer that induces him to take fast action to get it;
2. minimize any discussion of the features of your program -- how it works, leaving these details for your subsequent contact;
3. keep the message simple and motivating;
4. force the prospect to put his own stamp on and pay for any call he has to make with you (both good qualifiers), and
5. when you tell him he's not going to get any response at all unless he provides a phone number.

In short, the card must be heavy on both motivators... and qualifiers.

There's one more thing to keep in mind: card-deck work when you pay a reasonable price to participate, which means a reasonable price for the leads generated. Unfortunately, published card-deck prices are high, often, in fact, astronomical. Major companies like Marketing Bulletin Board, Venture, Hughes and Doyle Publishing charge up to 3.4 cents a card, with substantially more for four-color. This, for most people in MLM, is a major expense.

Fortunately, there's an alternative: my own Sales & Marketing SuccessDek. At 1.2 cents a card, my prices are by far the lowest in the entire card-deck industry. And while other companies may give you a lower price than their published rate the first time you advertise with them, you get an even lower rate with me every time you advertise... and without having to haggle for it! This means your per-lead costs are lower... and thus you achieve profitability faster.

What's more, smart MLM people get the benefit of the 100,000 cards in my deck... without paying a dime! Huh? That's right through various kinds of cooperative deals with members of their organizations, they reserve the 100,000 cards, then sell shares of the results. In my card-deck, for instance, many organizations do this. Say the card gets 1000 responses and the organizer wants to include 5 people. Each of these gets 200 leads and pays $240 each. The organizer pays nothing... but derives whatever benefits accrue because he is their upline! Amazing!!! And, of course, once the downline people build their own downline (which they should quickly be able to do with a minimum of 200 leads every 90 days), they can do the same thing and reap the same benefits!

Is this what you're doing now? Probably not... you're probably still putting up posters in the neighborhood, bugging your increasingly impatient friends and relations... and generally getting nowhere.

Note: don't think you can produce the kind of client-centered marketing copy I'm advocating for your card? No problem... I know that everyone's not going to turn into a superior client-centered marketer. Thus, we help produce the copy... show you samples of cards that have done well... and generally guide you in the right direction. WITHOUT CHARGE. Now, reread this sentence and make sure you understand it!

Developing An Effective Lead-Closing Program

Another thing to keep in mind about card-deck advertising is that you get your leads FAST. Within four to five days after the deck is mailed, you start getting a response. Within fourteen days of the deck's mailing... you're getting inundated. The trick is to know you'll be inundated... and to be ready to cope with the tidal wave.

This means, first, getting your response packets prepared. These packets, like all other marketing communications, need to be aggressively client-centered. They've got to be simple, packed with benefits, and graced with a motivating offer. By this standard, most MLM response packets are far too complicated and unnecessarily expensive. Personally, I've just finished developing a response package for an Images representative. He presented me with the materials he'd worked on for months and into which he'd invested thousands of dollars. As I was able to show him in just a few minutes, they were all about him... about Images... and didn't have the kinds of benefits the prospects would want. Net result? He had to junk his response package and, with my help, start again. But while the first set took him months and a heap of toil, we generated completely new -- and infinitely simpler and yet more compelling, client-centered materials -- in just a few days. He fought me every inch of the way as I tried to reorient his thinking towards a complete focus on his prospects. (He hated giving up his golden but unworkable words.) Net result: he's closing a far higher percentage of the far greater number of leads he's getting from the card deck than he ever did from the more expensive ads he previously used and the fewer respondents to whom he sent those far more expensive response packages. Learn, reader, learn.

Once you've developed truly client-centered marketing communications, you approach the entire business of lead-closing in an entirely different way. Since you've worked hard to present the major benefits and fashion a motivating offer, you don't have to be tentative any more about the prospects you deal with. Since your benefits are so clear... since your offer is so motivating... you can be entirely straight forward and candid. "Here's what you get, bub," you say. "Do you want it? Yes or no? If you want it, here's what you need to do to get it." If the prospect is real -- that is truly looking for the benefits you have available and truly willing to do what's necessary to get them, you can close him easier... because you've worked hard in advance to fashion the truly beneficial case. And if he doesn't want the benefits you've got, won't tell you why, won't give you the information you need, won't return your call... and in general won't act in his own responsible interest by working responsibly with you why, then, you can with a light heart toss the wasteful flat worm in the trash.

Why so lightly? Because with the huge response you've got coming in from your deck card, your next good lead is already on its way; the lead who won't waste your time and money. Moral? When you have few leads, you spend time and money on them whether they're good or not. When you have hundreds pouring in, you work the ones that promise the best results... and get rid of the rest as quickly as possible!

Conclusion

I pity most people in MLM. They're involved in a losing proposition. They don't understand if their opportunity can make money and haven't figured out yet what they've got to do to generate the number of leads they need... and to work these leads as effectively as possible to build the downlines they need to generate the necessary sales volume to achieve their objective. Fortunately, that's not you. If you've selected your opportunity wisely, now you know how card-decks will help you generate the number of leads you need (and, indeed, how to get these leads without paying a cent for them!)... and what to do when you get them. You, therefore, are going to be one of the relatively few people who make any real money in MLM. Congratulations!

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